


Breaking the Narrative

by Phoebe_Hunter



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Chris Argent Has Not Yet Recovered, Fairy Tale Elements, M/M, Magic Made Them Do It, POV Stiles, Swearing, The Devil Wears V-Necks and Favours Exposed Brick Feature Walls, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-15 00:25:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2208720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoebe_Hunter/pseuds/Phoebe_Hunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something seriously strange is going on in Beacon Hills. Derek won’t wake up, Malia's up a tree yelling about letting her hair down, Kira nearly took a carving knife to all of her toes and Stiles is forced to go to Peter for help. </p><p>Yeah, it’s going to be a <em>good</em> day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking the Narrative

**Author's Note:**

> I have very few excuses for this. I don't write crack very often (or at all) but this idea just wouldn't quit so I wrote it all down and...here it is! I suppose it's not *really* crack, it just doesn't take itself too seriously. 
> 
> Some of the lines of dialogue are taken from the original Grimm's version of Little Red Riding Hood, "Little Red-Cap". 
> 
> Comments and con-crit are loved, particularly as it has been a long time since I wrote fic and I'm new to this fandom.
> 
> Chris Argent was not harmed in the making of this fic. Much.
> 
> Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me.

Stiles didn’t think twice before pounding on Peter’s door. He was pretty sure the second thoughts were going to start as soon as Peter _opened_ the door. Yeah, you’re having a shit day when Peter Hale is your least-worst option. He’d left a note for his dad though, so at least they’d know where to start looking for the body.

Peter was taking his sweet time to answer the door (of course) and Stiles let himself slump forward against it as he tried to catch his breath. Too many stairs. Way too many stairs. Trust Peter to live on the top floor of a building too trendy for an elevator. Mind you, Stiles wasn’t totally convinced Peter didn’t fly in through one of the windows and sleep hanging upside down from a rafter wrapped in his bat wings of hell, so maybe he hadn’t even noticed the absence.

The door opened and Stiles had to grab the doorframe to keep from falling in an ignominious, panting heap at Peter’s feet. Peter’s _bare_ feet. Bare feet which had left a trail of damp footprints across the polished floorboards. And yup, there they were. All the second thoughts. Because appealing to Peter Hale for help was bad, but appealing to Peter-interrupted-in-the-middle-of-a-shower-Hale was definitely much worse. Stiles wasn’t exactly sure why, but it definitely was.

Peter’s hair was damp and tousled, his t-shirt was clinging to his torso and he looked basically exactly how Stiles would have imagined he’d look fresh out of the shower, if Stiles had ever thought about Peter Hale in the shower. Which he hadn’t. Obviously.

“You aren’t my pizza,” Peter said, feigning surprise. 

“Yeah, sure, like you’d ever eat a pizza that got delivered in a cardboard box.”

One day, someone was going to punch the smirk off Peter’s face. Hopefully someone with the wolfy capacity to bounce back from blunt force trauma.

“Is something the matter?” Peter didn’t look as though he’d be very troubled if something was.

“No,” Stiles said, trying to get his breathing under control (from the run up the stairs, definitely the run up the stairs), “this is totally normal. I drop past all the time, remember? We, like, hang out, watch movies, talk about our feelings.”

He half expected Peter to shut the door in his face, but Peter just stepped back and held the door open with exaggerated courtesy. That should have been reassuring but it really wasn’t because as Stiles ducked past him he realised with a jolt that he was in Peter’s house. _Peter’s_ house. Peter’s _house._

There was a steaming teacup sitting on the kitchen counter and the whole place smelled of wood and…something citrusy. He was in the lair of the beast and it turned out the beast liked exposed brick feature walls and Scandinavian furniture. It wasn’t what he’d expected.

“What did you expect?,” Peter asked from just behind Stiles’ right ear, scaring Stiles half out of his skin because damnit, the man moved like a _panther_ , and it had been a stressful morning _._

“I don’t know,” Stiles pushed his sweat-damp hair out of his eyes. “No _Art of War_ on the coffee table? No serial killer wall of doom? No chains or implements of torture?”

“I keep those in the bedroom.”

“O-k, moving on.” Stiles wasn’t quite ready to move on though, because Peter had what looked like the world’s most badass vinyl collection, and one of those under-the-stairs-bookcases that Lydia liked to look at on Pinterest, and despite all the aphorisms about curiosity and cats and lethal injury he couldn’t fight the urge to advance further into the apartment to get a better look at it. “But seriously, is this place yours? Because I find it hard to credit you with taste this good. No offence.”

“It’s mine.”

It was probably just Stiles’ suspicious imagination that added a _now_ to the end of that sentence. Probably. “What happened to the previous owners? Or, I mean, maybe I don’t want to know what happened to the previous owners. Don’t tell me. I’m happier not knowing.”

Peter retrieved his teacup (if it was herbal tea Stiles was going to hand in his gun and badge and go home because nothing made sense anymore) and took a sip, leaning back against the kitchen counter. “I assume there’s some disaster looming? Or is this a social call?”

Stiles planted his elbows on the mahogany dining table (definitely not IKEA, and why the hell did Peter even _need_ a dining table, was he throwing dinner parties for Beelzebub?) and tried to match Peter’s nonchalance. “We do have a bit of a problem.”

“ _You_ have a problem,” Peter corrected, giving Stiles a look so benign it was alarming.

“Nope, I’m pretty sure this is a “we” problem.”

One of Peter’s great talents, Stiles decided, was the capacity to inspire murderous impulses without having to say anything at all.

“So,” Stiles explained, “something witchy – I’m assuming witchy, because I don’t think it’s just something they, like, drank, and it only seems to be affecting supernatural creatures because Deaton and Chris and I are fine, if you can call having-to-chase-a-buck-naked-Scott-and-Liam-through-the-woods fine, which I definitely don’t , but that’s not the point…”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“…the point is that something’s making them all… act out fairytales.”

“Fairytales?”

“Yeah, you know, fairytales. Glass slippers, pumpkins, poor choices.” _Really_ poor choices, if the morning had been anything to go by.  

“Tell me Derek thinks he’s Cinderella.”

“Sleeping Beauty, actually.”

Peter snickered. To be honest, if Stiles hadn’t had to help tie Kira to a chair to keep her away from the carving knife he’d probably have been laughing his ass off as well. But he’d had to, so he wasn’t.

“Yeah, it was all fun and games until Kira tried to slice of all of her toes with a carving knife.”

“One of the step-sisters?”

Somehow, it didn’t surprise Stiles discover that Peter had a good working knowledge of Grimm’s fairytales. He was starting to think nothing Peter did would surprise him. And then he was proved wrong, because Peter crossed the kitchen, opened the fridge, and tossed him a bottle of water. A glass bottle. Of sparkling water. “You looked thirsty,” Peter said by way of explanation.

Stiles stared down at the bottle. “Yeah, ” was all he could manage. He was 99% sure he was actually being trolled. Life had been so simple once. No crazy assassins, no bizarre murders, no middle-aged werewolves with attitude problems.

“What makes you think I’d be able to shed any light on this situation?”

There wasn’t really any reason not to drink the water. Though Persephone had probably thought the same thing about the pomegranate seeds. Thirst won out and Stiles took a couple of restorative gulps before answering. “Oh, I don’t know, you’ve been around, you know. It was worth a try.”

One of Peter’s eyebrows rose toward his hairline. “I’ve been around?”

“Yeah, you know stuff. Things. Of a supernatural nature.”

“Even supposing I _could_ help, why _should_ I help?” Ah, there was the Peter Stiles knew and…disliked intensely.

“Because I’m appealing to your better nature?”

Peter raised one eyebrow.

“Because I’ve asked so nicely?”

“You haven’t, actually.”

“Malia’s been hit pretty hard.” There it was. The only card he had. Something barely perceptible shifted in Peter’s face and yeah, one of the top ten things on the list of reasons Peter Hale pissed Stiles off was that he didn’t even have the courtesy to totally and overtly evil. Maybe he just wanted to use Malia and maybe it was all a game to him, or maybe he actually did care, in his special Peter way. Maybe he had some skeazy plan for world domination or maybe he was a genuinely repentant reformed psychopath with a really cool apartment who just wanted a chance to be a good father.

Maybe.

Peter took another sip of his tea. “You need to break the narrative.” He sounded bored. “Do something that will tear the fabric of the fairytale apart.”

“You know this how?”

Peter shrugged, defaulting back to smug and enigmatic. Still, it sure beat “let’s all take turns kissing Derek and see if he wakes up.” Stiles located his phone and tapped out instructions to Deaton and Chris who, theoretically, should have had the sufferers corralled and ready for treatment.

Peter was still placidly drinking his tea in a way that made Stiles extremely nervous. Peter had always been pretty big on tit for tat and Stiles wasn’t stupid or naïve enough to think the information wouldn’t have a price tag attached, even if it was “buy now, pay later.”

“Ok,” Stiles pushed himself back upright and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Thanks for that. Good talk. We should do it again sometime.”

He’d almost made it to the door and was a millisecond away from praising the heavens for his deliverance when something caught his hood and he turned around and looked straight into a pair of very, very blue eyes.

“This might not have been a good idea,” Peter said, giving the hood a tug. There was an edge to his voice that had become all too familiar. Malia had started talking in just the same tone right before she’d gone straight up a tree and started ranting about her hair.

“What? Oh fuck _seriously_?” It was red. The hood was red. Of course it was red.

Peter closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He hadn’t wolfed out but he must have been digging his claws into his palms hard enough to draw blood because it was dripping over his knuckles and onto the polished floorboards. Pity about the floorboards.

“Stiles,” Peter said, in a voice so controlled it sent a shiver down Stiles’ spine. “I think it might be best if you stepped away.”

Stiles didn’t need to be told twice. He scrambled back, putting the kitchen island in between them, and realised two seconds too late that he had also put Peter between him and the door. Stupid stupid _stupid._ Even if Peter was slower than he used to be (and, to be honest, Stiles was pretty certain the whole weakness thing was total bullshit confected to make sure Peter didn’t have to do anything too helpful), Stiles wouldn’t have given himself a snowball’s chance in hell if Peter had decided he really wanted an early lunch.

Stiles supposed it could have been worse. Little Red Riding Hood didn’t _actually_ get eaten. He would’ve been worried about his grandma, but she wasn’t likely to get any deader.

“Good day, Little Red-Cap.” The Grimm version. They’d all been getting the Grimm versions. The one time when you want some fucking Disney. Peter’s voice had dropped to a purr and Stiles was pretty sure he’d never really wanted to add “Peter Hale’s sex voice” to his auditory library, but there you go. Awesome.

Ok, if he were being totally honest he might’ve admitted that it wasn’t _just_ fear sending his heart rate through the roof but that was a concept he’d rather have explored alone in his bedroom with death and/or horrible pain a little less imminent. Or not at all.

“Whither away so early, Little Red-Cap?”

Peter advanced, walking with the slow grace of a predator, perfectly balanced. Stiles moved around the counter, step by step, trying to keep it between them. He managed to hook his phone out of his pocket while keeping one eye on Peter and got off an “SOS” to Chris. The cavalry was on its way and he just had to stave off death until it arrived. Peter didn’t seem to be in that much of a hurry. The Big Bad Wolf obviously shared Peter’s fondness for dragging things out.

As long as it wasn’t Stiles’ entrails being dragged out, Stiles was willing to take that as a blessing.

“Ok,” Stiles murmured. “Break the narrative. Break the narrative.”

“What have you got in your apron?”

And Stiles had to laugh, because it had been a really long day and Peter was literally now the Big Bad Wolf and it was ridiculous in a horrifying, “bits of me might end up in the light fittings” sort of way.

“You don’t have to run,” Peter said, and it was alarm bells all the way because Stiles knew that wasn’t on the script. He could hear Lydia’s voice in his head telling him to try not to bleed on the nice designer furniture and he was pretty sure he was going to die unless…

It was a horrible, horrible idea, so Stiles acted on it before he could talk himself out of it. He stepped right into Peter’s path.

Peter’s lips curved into a smile. “I’m hungry, Little Red-Cap,” he said, and reached for Stiles’ wrists.

Instead of pulling away Stiles grabbed Peter’s shoulders, pushed him hard back against the oven, and kissed him.

It wasn’t a very good kiss. Stiles didn’t think he could really be blamed for that; he was too busy thinking “please, please, please don’t let me die” to worry much about the finesse of the whole thing. He managed to get his lips on Peter’s and that was about all that could be said for it. Their teeth clashed, they bumped noses, and Stiles trod heavily on Peter’s right foot. Peter went rigid and Stiles braced himself for fractured ribs and/or evisceration.

Then there was a hand in Stiles’ hair, tilting his head, and Peter’s lips were moving against his. The kiss softened, turned languorous. Peter’s teeth caught Stiles’ bottom lip and Stiles was glad that he was still holding on to Peter’s shoulders because his legs weren’t doing an amazing job of keeping him upright and…holy fuck, he was making out with Peter Hale. In Peter Hale’s kitchen. There were approximately a billion reasons that was a really bad idea.

Peter traced one finger down Stiles’ cheek and the sharpness of his claw made Stiles shiver. It was very hot and very disturbing and very…Peter. This was all Peter, no doubt about that. Peter’s hands on his waist and in his hair, Peter’s breath in his mouth, the roughness of Peter’s stubble under his fingers and yeah, wouldn’t you know, turned out kissing was just one more thing Peter Hale did irritatingly well.

There was a choked noise from the doorway and Stiles leapt backwards, banging his hip hard against the corner of the kitchen island.

“I see you, ah, handled the situation yourself,” Chris said.

“I, uh, broke the narrative, yeah” Stiles agreed. Chris was looking at them as though they’d broken Chris’ _brain_. “Everything under control, as you can see, and you’re here now, so I guess there’s no risk of a happy ending.”

Chris looked as though he was seriously considering shooting himself in the head to get away from the horror of it all.

“Everything good with the others?” Stiles asked. Not looking at Peter. He wasn’t sure he was going to look at Peter ever again.

“Yes,” Chris said. “They’ll be fine.”

“Good, good.”

The silence became very awkward, very quickly.

“Did you want to clean up before we go?” Chris asked.

“Hey,” Stiles said. “Now wait a second, I don’t know what exactly you’re trying to say about teenage boys but he’s not _that_ good a kisser and…”

“I believe he’s talking about the blood,” Peter interrupted. “But I appreciate the compliment.” And yeah, looking at Peter was definitely a mistake, because Stiles found his eyes unerringly drawn to Peter’s lips, which had quirked into the beginnings of a smirk, and it was a lot harder to breathe all of a sudden.

“The…” Stiles looked down. “Oh. Gross.” Peter had left bloody handprints on his wrists and, Stiles assumed, his face. And in his hair. And…everywhere else he’d touched. Which might have gone some way towards explaining Chris’ reaction. “Uh… I’ll clean up in the car.”

A glovebox supply of wet wipes became a necessity when you spent a lot of time caring for the wounded and/or dealing with corpses.

“Ok.” Chris’ posture made it clear that every second he remained in Peter’s apartment was a second too long. A feeling Stiles was beginning to share. Peter didn’t look discomfited in the slightest and a hasty escape was probably ideal, before Peter decided to stop making things awkward through silence and start making them awkward through speech.

Stiles suspected his chances of a dignified exit were probably shot to hell but he did his best. “Thanks again,” he said over his shoulder. “For the information, I mean. Obviously.”

He could _hear_ the smirk in Peter’s voice. “Obviously.”


End file.
